


the fbi basement bulletin board

by hellsteeth



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Blood, Blow Jobs, Drabble Collection, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Tumblr Prompt, emetophobia warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:34:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 7,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26592988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsteeth/pseuds/hellsteeth
Summary: A collection of msr tumblr prompt responsesfind me on tumblr @ dr-scuhlly
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 10
Kudos: 124





	1. Bedside Manner

**Author's Note:**

> TW: vomiting
> 
> Scully taking care of Mulder after he gets sick as a result of eating evidence

Mulder heaves into the toilet bowl in Scully’s bathroom and she pats the space between his shoulder blades gingerly. She is better at comforting sick children than sick adults and years of working with mostly cadavers has chipped away at her bedside manner.

“It’s alright, just…let it out.” she says awkwardly, rubbing circles into his back from where she is seated on the edge of the tub. He takes a few deep breaths in between dry heaves and groans.

“Don’t say it…” he says weakly, sitting back against the wall and putting his head in his hands. She flushes the toilet and offers him a cup of water. He turns even paler than he was, if possible, and shakes his head.

She sits back down next to him and gently maneuvers him into an upright position against the wall like a rag doll so she can press the back of her hand against his clammy forehead. Well, he doesn’t seem to have a fever. That’s a small mercy considering how ill he looks. She knows what he’s asking of her, and the urge to say _I told you so_ is strong. She’ll wait until he’s feeling a bit better though.

The root of the problem had been swirling around a murky puddle of unknown composition at a crime scene they’d been investigating the day before. While she had simply scooped up a small vial of the substance for analysis at the Milwaukee field office, Mulder had taken a bolder approach. While she labeled the vial of strange green goo in her neat script, he knelt down, scooped some of it onto his pointer finger and popped it into his mouth with a look of concentration on his face. She’d nearly dropped the vial in shock and shouted at him from across the room, but it had been too late. Mulder, unable to deduce the makeup of the substance from taste and mouth-feel alone, had swallowed it in one poorly planned gulp.

By some undeserved miracle, that strange goo (contents still unknown) hadn’t come back to seek it’s vengeance until halfway through the flight back to DC. She’d already closed her eyes, preparing for their descent when she heard him groan next to her and double over in his seat. He’d stayed in roughly the same position all the way home, through the airport, slowly turning green as she dragged him across baggage claim and into a cab.

He’d bolted toward the bathroom the moment they entered her apartment, which was slightly closer to the airport than his. Her decision to take him there had been a solid one, as he started vomiting the minute he stumbled down next to the toilet.

So here they sit, on her bathroom floor, as he stares at the opposite wall blankly. He looks miserable, and she pities him despite the fact that he got himself into this situation with his appalling investigation methods.

“You know…” she begins.

“No.”

“I wasn’t going to say it.”

“Oh, come on,” He swallows thickly and looks at her. “I know you want to. Kick a man while he’s down, why don’t you.”

She sighs and stands to retrieve a washcloth from her towel closet. She wets it with cool water and wrings it out a few times before placing it on the back on his neck. He closes his eyes and his features relax a little. His shoulders stop tensing quite as much. She runs her fingers through his damp hair slowly.

“I’m not trying to kick you while you’re down.” she says quietly. “I was just going to say that if this doesn’t go away on its own soon we should go to the hospital. There’s no telling what you ingested yesterday, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Mulder shakes his head before placing it between his knees. “No need, Scully.” His voice echoes a little off the tiled floor. “This will take care of itself, I can tell.”

She raised an eyebrow, for her own benefit if nothing else. “I want to believe you, but your judgement seems to be a little impaired these days, Mulder.”

He scoffs. “That’s getting dangerously close to the magic words isn’t it?”

“Just stating the obvious, that’s all.”

“Right, right.”

They’re both quiet for a few minutes until he’s overcome by nausea yet again and vomits. She tries to make soothing noises while rubbing his shoulder. The last time she saw him this sick was on a boat in the middle of the ocean. What the hell did he swallow?

She convinces him to drink a little water and rinse out his mouth when he’s done. He’s still wary of being away from the bathroom so she brings a throw blanket and wraps it around him.

She wants to scold him, to tell him to be more careful. They’ve encountered all kinds of disgusting things over the years that ought not be dealt with mouth-first. Licking at fake blood that luckily turned out to be food is one thing, but practically drinking out of a puddle is another. She shakes her head to herself in frustration. He’s always been better at caring for her when sick than vice versa, but she’s trying her best and she’s fairly sure that lecturing him right now would be counterproductive.

She’ll whisper _I told you so_ to him later, whenhe’s resting in her bed with a settled stomach. He’ll roll his eyes and pull her toward him, out of the chair she had dragged in to watch him from. He’ll promise to be more careful, knowing that she’ll hold him to it.


	2. Ogling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ficlet prompt: Scully ogling Mulder (openly or trying to be covert, your choice) until Mulder notices

“Mulder, if I wake up covered in sunflower seeds I’m never going to forgive you.” Scully threatens, mostly joking. Mulder sits atop her motel room bed, case notes spread out in front of him and a small pile of sunflower seed shells become less-small as he snacks absentmindedly.

“I’m willing to take that risk.” He murmurs, a seed balanced between his top and bottom teeth. Scully rolls her eyes at him and turns back to her computer on the desk. She dives back into her report, valiantly attempting to make sense of the latest strangeness they’ve been sent to investigate. So far, all she has to offer Skinner is a string of nonsense that even her scientific mind can’t completely describe in detached and technical language.

Some time later, Scully sighs wearily and straightens her back. Over the computer screen, her eyes meet a pair of bleary blue eyes. Her own eyes, in the mirror she’s facing. She looks tired and wants nothing more than to take a hot shower, wrap herself in her robe and sink into bed.

She glances at Mulder, unbothered in his single-minded state as ever, in the mirror. Scully, ever the physicist, knows that a Mulder in motion will tend to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. She could turn around, tell him to go back to his room if he wants to read and re-read files all night, tell him she needs to be alone, but-

but.

well.

Mulder is slightly disheveled. Tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, forearms exposed. While his eyes are glued to a stack of papers in front of him, he pushes his glasses up his nose and flicks a strand of hair out of his eyes. He is a contradiction, or at least his reflection is, looking both cozy and disciplined as he works.

Scully is transfixed by his image, the easiness with which he sits on her bed and reads file after pile, dropping all of the facts at hand through the sieve of his mind and adding a bit of the secret ingredient that makes him believe in cryptids and makes her want to tear her hair out.

Mulder picks up another seed from the bag next to him and works it between his teeth, tongue flicking out to separate seed from shell. Her brain, too tired to force her to swivel to another subject of attention as usual, zeroes in on his mouth. A person has to be fairly talented with their tongue to do that over and over again, she thinks idly.

Her gazes, with a mind of its own, slides down to his lap. He is sitting cross-legged. For the briefest moment, she entertains the idea of sliding onto that same lap, straddling him.

Mulder clears his throat and Scully nearly jumps out of her skin. She whips around to look at him in the flesh and feels heat bloom in her cheeks.

“Are you alright, Scully? I thought maybe you had dozed off when I stopped hearing you type.” His face is open, earnest. She hasn’t been found out. She’s beyond relieved.

Scully nods. “I’m fine, a little tired though.” She yawns, half for effect and half from true fatigue. 

Mulder nods and stands, stretching. “I’m going to grab a soda from the vending machine, can I get you something with caffeine?”

She nods again. “A diet coke, please. I guess I am kind of thirsty.”

Mulder salutes her jokingly before slipping on his shoes and grabbing his wallet. He places his hand on the motel room door to open it but pauses and smirks.

“Seems like you aren’t just thirsty for soda.” he mutters, almost too quiet to hear, before stepping out of the room.


	3. sunrise routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: They never talk about it, but Mulder and scully make a habit of driving to the highest point of the area they’re in to watch the sunrise together before they head home from a case. they usually sit in silence but one day Scully decides to say something

They sit in the cozy oasis of their rental car, a welcome protection from the harshness of the northeastern January outside. Scully wraps her manicured fingers around the cup of coffee in her hands, savoring every bit of warm she can pull out of it before her drink goes cold. Next to her, Mulder holds an identical cup, but it is forgotten in his lap as he gazes out at the horizon.

They’d both turned in early the night before, the product of a case solved sooner than expected. This morning, they had awoken in their separate rooms, dressed and packed silently before settling into the car for their drive back to DC. They could have slept in for a few more hours, but Mulder can only tolerate a few hours of sleep at a time before the gears in his mind overheat and he’s up finding an activity, and Scully had had no reservations about rising and driving off in the darkness.

Slowly but surely, the deep purple of the winter sky had started to give over to a softer light. At the first hint of sunrise, Mulder had glanced and Scully and she’d nodded before craning her neck to appraise the surrounding area. She’d pointed to a spot at the top of a hill, about a mile down the road and there they had parked.

Here they sit, their unspoken little routine, their little secret. Motel coffee and wind whooshing around the hilltop and frost on the windows. The two of them, the sunrise. Always the two of them and the sunrise, as if the world contains only them. Sometimes she feels like it really does.

Mulder is sipping his coffee and looking at the sky as if he is looking through it, his mind far away. If not for the fact that they had solved the case without any casualties last night, Scully would be concerned. But she can tell that this Mulder is simply relaxed, content and contemplative. She smiles while watching him out of the corner of her eye, sunrise momentarily forgotten.

Mulder catches her eye and swipes at the corner of his mouth hastily. “Did I not get all the toothpaste?”

Scully laughs a little and shakes her head. “No, I was just thinking.”

“But you were looking at me.” Not a question. A statement. Not necessarily an accusation, though.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She glances at the sun, slowly making its way over the horizon and lightening the sky, and then back at Mulder. “I was thinking about you. About this.”

He blinks at her. They’ve never discussed their sunrise routine before. “What are you thinking?”

Scully yawns and takes another indulgent sip of her coffee, in no rush. This morning, she is content too. “Just that I like doing this with you. I’m glad we started doing it.” 

It’s too early for Mulder to pull an innuendo out of the statement, even when caffeinated. Instead, he wrestles with the middle console of the car until it flips vertically upward, leaving a wide open space between them.

“C’mere, Scully.” he smiles softly at her and motions with his hand. She obliges, sliding closer to him and resting her head on his chest. Mulder puts his arm around her, pulling her close and warming her up better than her coffee could ever dream to.

“I like this too.” he whispers, pressing a kiss to her temple. Another small act that will stay between the two of them and the sunrise.


	4. friday night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: scully kissing mulder in the cheek wary in their relationship, purely to show affection. no one is hurt.

**The Hoover Building, Basement Office**

**Friday, 4:45 PM**

Mulder is shaken out of his work-induced trance by the sound of kitten heels clacking lightly. Scully is standing in the corner of the basement office, filing away evidence reports and bouncing a little on her toes, looking excited. He can’t blame her, since he’s just as excited for tonight as she is.

Last Friday had been a standard dinner followed by drinks at her place (wine that evening, coffee the next morning). Tonight they are going to the drive-in. He’d cleaned out his car the night before in anticipation, placing a few blankets in the back in case she got chilly and a new air freshener on the rear view mirror. He usually dreads cleaning out the cesspit that is his car, but he’s more than happy to do it for her. 

Scully keeps glancing at her watch between tasks. When she finds that they still have fifteen minutes left, she sighs. Mulder, in an act of solidarity, closes the folder he had been looking through with a _snap_. Scully looks at him bemusedly.

“What do you say we get out of here a couple minutes early?” he suggests, throwing a wink in her direction. She smirks and raises an eyebrow playfully while sliding the drawer next to her closed. Mulder quickly files away another use for those filing cabinets- perhaps their plans for next Friday if she’s game.

Scully makes a show of checking her watch and nodding slowly before walking over to his desk and sliding into her coat. 

“I think we can get away with it.” she confirms.

“One week and I’ve already got you breaking all the rules for me.” he teases, pleased to see her mood improve.

Scully laughs and kisses him on the cheek in response before walking out of the office.

“I’ll see you at 7:00!” she calls on her way out.

It’s Mulder’s turn to be impatient. 7:00 can’t come soon enough.


	5. backseat driver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt!!! It’s the first time Scully drives them to a case because Mulder has injured his wrist. Mulder is struggling with the map and gets sulky.

“…ouch.”

“Stop messing with it and it’ll stop hurting.”

The big map crinkles loudly.

“Ouch.”

“Dammit, Mulder. Would you stop bothering your wrist and tell me where I’m supposed to turn?” She hates driving for an audience. Especially a pouty, gangly audience of one who isn’t used to sitting in the passenger seat. Mulder’s long legs are folded up awkwardly, as if he hadn’t thought to adjust the seat.

“I can’t help it, Scully. The cast is itchy.” He stretches his left arm out, clearly shifting his wrist inside of its plaster prison.

“Hm. Well you probably don’t need a medical professional to tell you this, but if you keep moving it around, it’s going to take longer to heal. You need to rest it.”

“Noted, doc. And you just missed the turn, by the way.”

“Shit.” She mutters and glances in the rear view mirror with a frown. Scully does a quick k-turn in a driveway and turns around. “You’re a terrible navigator.”

“And you’re terrible at comforting the injured.”

“Sorry. Most of the bodies I deal with don’t talk back.”

“Do you take constructive criticism?”

“No.”

“I probably wouldn’t call them ‘bodies’. Just a thought.” Mulder, glances at the map pensively and points to a street sign. She signals and turns.

“I’ll take that under consideration.”

The sound of asphalt on wheels is the only noise for a few minutes before Mulder speaks up.

“You…have a driver’s license right?”

She narrows her eyes but does not turn her head. Right now, the road in front of them is getting her best death glare. “Your legs aren’t broken. You could walk the rest of the way.”

“I’ll take that under consideration.” he teases sulkily.

She’s annoyed with him, more than she usually is. It’s a powerful combination of sleep deprivation, travel stress and generally irritability that is exacerbated by Mulder’s whining. But he is shifting in the passenger seat and bouncing his leg, a move she has seen enough times to identify as poorly-disguised pain. Scully pulls over and grabs her briefcase from the backseat. Mulder looks at her quizzically.

“Did you get bored?”

She shakes her head and pulls out a travel-sized bottle of Tylenol. “Here.” she holds it out to him, an olive branch.

Mulder blinks at the bottle before grabbing it and shaking a few pills into his hand. “Thanks.”

Scully shrugs and pulls back onto the road. “Don’t mention it.”

Mulder is slightly subdued after that. He gives her clear driving instructions and Scully’s irritability abates. At some point, she reaches over and places a hand over his cast, her hand covering the small _Scully_ that she had written there in permanent marker a few days ago.


	6. art imitates life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: Scully invites Mulder to a life drawing class that she got a gift voucher for. The model, small, slim and red-headed, looks suspiciously like Scully.

“Damn,” Scully mutters irritably, lowering her phone from her ear.

Mulder looks up from his desk, a somewhat convincing look of innocence on his face, as if he had not just heard every agitated word she had hissed into the phone moments before.

“Is everything ok, Scully?” he asks in concern.

She nods and sits on the other side of the desk, her spine straight as a flagpole. He catalogs the sign of her tension silently. “Everything’s fine. My sister gave me a voucher to a class for my birthday a while ago and it’s about to expire. She was going to come with me. but something came up and she had to cancel at the last minute” she explains.

“What kind of class?” he pictures Taekwondo, or maybe something practical like cooking.

“Life drawing.” she answers. When Mulder raises his eyebrows and begins to open his mouth, she holds a small finger up and adds, “It was her idea, not mine. Art is one of her interests and she wants me to share it with her.”

“So you were going to go to a class to draw complete strangers?”

“Apparently.”

“Naked strangers?”

“That’s usually how it goes, or so I’m told.”

“Naked men?”

Scully smiles a little and roles her eyes. “Maybe, I don’t know. Why, are you jealous because of my cancelled plans?” she teases.

“What do you mean _cancelled_?” Mulder asks. “You still have two vouchers, don’t you?”

Scully looks at him blankly, unaware of his meaning. “Yes…but my friend Ellen said she has her son’s soccer game tonight, and I would never ask my mother to come with me so…” she trails off, motioning vaguely with her hands to show the futility of the situation. “I wasn’t really interested in going anyways.”

“Nonsense, I’ll come with you.” Mulder says breezily.

Scully is silent for a moment, genuinely stunned and unable to continue their banter. “You’ll what?”

Mulder nods. “Yeah, it’ll be fun. You can’t let your birthday present go to waste, Scully. It would be rude.” He says in a faux scolding voice. She smiles.

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

Mulder couldn’t be more sure. It isn’t as if he has other plans, and even if he did, he would cancel them in a heartbeat to spend the evening watching Scully draw and blush over nude models.

“I’m sure. Maybe we can set you up with one of the models for an extra birthday treat.” he wiggles his eyebrows at her and she rolls her eyes, clearly pleased with the fact that he’s going to join her.

–

The classroom in the community center is cramped with aspiring artists, taking out their sketchbooks and drawing utensils quietly. Mulder and Scully find seats in the corner of the room. Before Mulder can voice the fact that he hadn’t thought to bring anything to draw with or on, Scully pulls two drawing pads and a small bag of pencils out of her purse.

“More gifts from Melissa,” she explains, handing him a pad and pencil. He nods and doodles idly, knowing that his art isn’t exactly museum-worthy. Mulder can sketch what he needs to on the job and that’s about it. He hasn’t had the opportunity to see Scully create art and is curious as to what she will come up with.

Mulder watches the instructor introduce herself with passive interest, chewing on the end of his pencil. The instructor is saying something about warm-up poses and he’s suddenly thinking back to a case he’d read about, an old X-File, concerning bodies left eviscerated and posed in peculiar ways. Scully nudges his arm a little as the students around him begin drawing and he zones back in. A model stands on a pedestal and he looks up before doing a double-take between the model and the woman sitting next to him.

The model isn’t so similar to Scully that he would mistake her for his partner on the street. Her eyes are a warm brown, she’s a bit taller than Scully, though not by much, and lithe in places where Scully is muscular. The carpet does not match the drapes, per se, although he doesn’t have sufficient information to really compare _that_ aspect between the two women. Still, the model has the same straight nose, pale skin, small waist and, most notably, bright red hair as Scully.

He glances over at Scully, who is looking down at her sketch pad with the same concerned focus that she has when she checks reports for typos. She bites her bottom lip slightly as she sketches the outline of the model, clearly more focused on the precision of her drawing than the fact that this woman could play her in a movie with an almost spooky level of accuracy.

He’s looking at a naked woman who looks almost exactly like Scully. While Scully is sitting next to him.

_Choose your next moves carefully,_ he thinks to himself while gingerly pressing the tip of his pencil to his paper. In this moment, Mulder is grateful for both the fact that he doesn’t suffer from the same tendency to blush as Scully does and the fact that his sketch pad covers his lap.

Unbeknownst to Mulder, Scully glances at him out of the corner of her eye and smirks to herself.

–

After dodging multiple attempts from the class instructor to sign up, and pay, for more classes, Mulder and Scully collect their things and walk out toward their cars. Mulder lets out of sigh of relief as they leave the building.

“So, should I start looking for a new partner so you can pursue your art career?” he asks and Scully smiles at him. That smile could only be hers, something another person, no matter the resemblance, could ever replicate.

“I think I’m going to stick to the art of numbers,” she replies. He rolls his eyes jokingly and she elbows him in the ribs lightly, playfully. “But if I decide to open up an art studio and draw pretty women all day, you’ll be the first to know.”

Mulder turns to her, a little surprised. “You thought she was pretty?” They stop walking and he leans against the trunk of his car.

Scully nods a little, eyes assessing him with an ambiguous scrutiny. “I don’t think I was the only one.” Scully takes a few steps closer to him until their legs touch. She’s got him backed up against his car, and one of his hands immediately rises to settle against her lower back out of habit. Her muscles are tense under his touch, but she is smiling a Mona Lisa smile at him, her face relaxed. “Did you see something you liked, Mulder?” she whispers.

He swallows, feeling found out, and nods. “I see it now, present-tense, too.”

In a fluid move, she rises up on her toes and captures his lips with her own. His other hand reaches out to hold her and his arms encircle her waist. Their bodies are flush against each other and he can feel the warmth of her, even through the layers of their coats and clothing. He wants to be closer to the warmth, to exist inside of it with her, a bubble that is just them in this unexpected moment.

One of his hands traces up her body and alongside her cheek while they kiss, caressing the softness of her flesh there. She whimpers in to his mouth, a nearly-silent sound that sends want rushing through him like waves before a storm. He echoes the sound she makes when she nips at his bottom lip gently.

Scully pulls away and settles back onto her feet. They look at each other for a moment, hair mussed and pupils dilated. Without another word, he unlocks his car and she climbs in the passenger seat. He drives them toward his apartment, grateful for their unspoken language and Scully’s discerning eye. 

He’ll have to thank Melissa Scully for cancelling, but that can wait until the morning.


	7. An Early Morning Birthday Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In honor of Fox Mulder's 59th birthday

Mulder wakes with a blissful sigh already escaping his lips. As his senses return to him from the depths of sleep, he is overwhelmed by a pleasure that starts in his cock and radiates outward, warming his body like the sun.

He brings an arm up behind his head, using it as a pillow so he has a better view of what is going on further down the bed. The space next to him is empty, but a figure underneath the duvet bobs up and down languidly, making her presence known. Mulder gasps as Scully’s lips and hot tongue envelope his cock in wetness, licking up against the vein on the underside of it and slowly circling the head until he’s squirming.

He comes like a crashing wave, body held taut by pleasure. One hand twists in his lover’s ginger hair, not pulling, but grabbing on for support. When his muscles relax, Mulder’s cock slips from Scully’s lips and she emerges from beneath the sheets like a siren out of the sea.

Scully wipes her mouth on the back of her hand primly and cuddles up to Mulder, pressing their nude forms together.

“Good morning,” She whispers, capturing his lips for a relaxed kiss.

“I’ll say,” He smiles, cradling the back of her head and peppering her cheeks and nose with light kisses. “Is it my birthday or something?”

He’s joking, but she freezes and looks at him quizzically. 

“Um…yes?”

He sits up, grabbing his watch off the bedside table and checking the date. Sure enough, it’s October 13th. He smacks his forehead, astounded by his own oversight. Scully giggles and pulls him back down, curling her body around his and pulling the blanket over them. He flips to spoon her and nuzzles his face into her hair, breathing deeply. 

“I guess that explains the wake-up call, huh?”

She nods and hums in agreement. “But that wasn’t your only present,”

Mulder grins and holds her close, savoring the warmth of her back pressed up against his chest. “Scully, you’re the only present I need, and I have you every single day. I don’t think I could be happier if I tried,”

She wiggles her bare ass against him, and despite the fact that his cock is still softening after her “gift”, he feels a stir of interest there.

“I’m going to spend all day proving you wrong, birthday boy,”


	8. Vexation and Vocal Dysfunction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Scully has a cold and refuses to go home, Mulder decides that annoying her out of the office is his only option.

Scully sits in the far back corner of the office, past the maps and sinks and projectors. The makeshift desk at which she sits is stacked with files that her glassy eyes barely read. She sniffs and swallows slowly, grimacing at the constriction and soreness of her throat. As soon as she gets through this report she can beg off early, head home and take a bath, down a gallon of tea-

Scully’s eyes snap back open before she even realizes that she’d closed them. Back to work, only a few more hours. Buck up, Dana.

Mulder watches the troubling scene from his desk, the white light of his computer monitor illuminating the frown on his face. A quarter-hour late this morning, Scully had walked in sluggishly, croaked out a _hello_ and set up shop far away from him. Save for her greeting and the occasional sniffle, she’s been silent all morning, which is a first for her. Surely she’d stay home if she was really sick, right? Mulder is trying not to worry excessively and failing miserably.

Unable to contain the nervous energy buzzing inside of his skull any longer, Mulder spares the poor office ceiling of any more pencils and walks over to the doorway that leads to the back room of the office. He raps his knuckles against the frame and Scully jumps, startled.

“Sorry,” Mulder says sheepishly. He makes to step into the room but Scully holds an arm out and shakes her head.

“Don’t want you catching what I have,” She says urgently, voice barely a scratchy whisper. He winces in sympathy at how painful it must be for her to speak.

“I may not be a doctor, but I know that there’s pretty much a zero-percent chance of me catching whatever diet plague you have if you go home and get some rest,” He says lightly while sending her much more desperate appeals with his eyes. _Please, Scully, just this once will you take care of yourself?_

She shakes her head stubbornly, pushing her glasses up her nose and returning her gaze to her paper. Mulder grinds his teeth in frustration, stalking back to the front of the office and grabbing the closest available file out of a cabinet. He licks the tip of his finger and flips through it before walking back to the doorway.

“Well let’s hope that you recover from whatever is bothering you soon, because I have got _quite_ the X-File for us to investigate as soon as we know you won’t infect an entire airplane,”

Scully looks up from her paper and raises an eyebrow, interest piqued. He takes the movement as encouragement to continue and reads from the old file.

“It says here that a group of teenagers out in Arkansas have experienced several instances of time travel over the last few months.” Scully levels him with an unimpressed look, but Mulder plows ahead with his grandiose exposition. “Yep, they claim that they traveled back in time to stop the assassination of JFK but went to the wrong building and then visited the future. Hey, get this, in forty years we’re all going to be living on Venus. Pretty cool, huh?”

Mulder can almost feel the intensity of Scully’s derision as she stares at him, trying to figure out whether he’s serious. He can tell that she wants to contradict him, but feels fairly confident in the assessment that she can’t speak at the moment. Perfect. If he can’t get her to go home using reason and logic, he’ll annoy her right out of the office and onto her couch, or bed, or wherever Scully curls up when she’s feeling shitty.

She huffs and shakes her head, clearly dismissing him, so Mulder shrugs. “I was thinking that while we’re down there we can look for the Fouke Monster, it’s sort of a Texarkana classic in the cryptozoology world.” Is it just his vision failing him, or does Mulder detect a bit of color rising to Scully’s wan cheeks? “The evidence for the existence of this thing is just overwhelming. I’d be happy to show you if you-” Off her glare, he shrivels a little. “Maybe another time. Anyways, the trip shouldn’t take us more than five, six days at most. The Bureau will probably finance it, right?”

Scully crosses her arms and scowls at him, her anger childish but well-earned. She knows what he’s doing and Mulder flashes a grin at her smugly before rattling off more information from the file in his hand. The moment the phrase _purple men from Venus working in the government_ leaves his lips, Scully stands abruptly and gives him a curt nod. 

“I’m going to get some rest,” She rasps, shoving her papers into her briefcase. Mulder feigns surprise.

“Really? I thought you had work to do,”

She finally cracks a small, fond smile and waves goodbye to him, done talking for the day.

After work, Mulder apologizes in the form of hot tea and cold ice cream. Despite her wordless protests and worries of making him sick, he lays with Scully on the couch and strokes her hair until she falls asleep. When she wakes in the morning, her ability to speak has returned and she thanks him, just this once, for annoying her.


	9. "baby"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Scully calls Mulder ‘baby’ for the first time during sex

It’s so soft and fleeting that he nearly misses it.

The word is whispered reverentially, tossed about the sounds of their lovemaking and the rustle of sheets like a person thrown overboard into tumultuous waters. It surfaces and disappears into another crashing wave of needy sighs.

_Baby…_

Scully breathes it into his hair, the warm air of her exhale stirring a few stray hickory locks. Mulder stills for just a moment, buried completely inside her. At the feeling of Scully stiffening underneath him, the telltale sign of self-consciousness flourishing in a blush up her chest and neck, he resumes his slow strokes. Mulder removes his lips from a soft spot under her ear at which he had been steadily sucking and captures her bottom lip between them.

Scully sighs in relief and ecstasy, gasping a little as she feels his cock hit a spot deep inside her. Mulder nips at her bottom lip before soothing it over with his tongue and pushing just inside her mouth. Her own tongue meets his, stroking gently.

“Call me that again,” He implores.

So she does. And does. And does.


	10. advent calendar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Mulder and Scully buy each other advent calendars but one of them has no will power and opens/ eats everything on the first 🎄

**December 1st, 1998**

“Advent calendars, Scully? Isn’t that a thing for kids?”

Scully shakes her head pitifully. “Oh Mulder, if I didn’t know better I’d think that _The Grinch_ was a documentary about your life. Where’s your holiday spirit?” Her eyes roam the festive display at the supermarket, searching for the perfect advent calendar.

Mulder chuckles and sets down the sparkly wreath that he had been examining. “Hey, my family always celebrated Christmas _and_ Hanukkah, so if anything, I’ve got twice the amount of holiday spirit that you do.”

Scully smiles fondly and then puts her hands on her hips. “Alright, prove it.”

“And how exactly would you like me to do that?” He asks playfully, mirroring her stance.

“Let’s choose advent calendars for each other,” A grin threatens to overtake her lips and her eyes sparkle. “My siblings and cousins and I used to do it all the time...when our parents let us have the chocolate ones.”

Scully looks delightfully cheery in her off-duty sweater. It’s as if she was built for the holiday season, all warm colors and coziness and light. Mulder is already susceptible to her persuasion on a normal day, but now he is powerless against how adorable and excited she looks.

“Alright.” He agrees, stepping closer to the shelf and turning a critical eye to the colorful and occasionally over-the-top designs on the various calendars. After much consideration, he makes sure Scully is focused on choosing a calendar for him and then plucks one with cartoon drawings of Santa’s reindeer on it from the shelf.

_How’s that for holiday spirit?_ He thinks, holding the calendar behind his back. “I’m gonna go check out, I’ll meet you at the car.” He winks at Scully and she nods at him, still lost in deliberation.

\--

Scully settles into the passenger seat of the car, shivering slightly from the icy wind outside and hugging a plastic bag to her chest.

“Did you find the perfect calendar for me?” He asks, backing out of the parking spot and turning onto the main road. Scully smiles mysteriously.

“For you? Without a doubt.”

After a short drive, Mulder parks outside Scully’s building and turns to her. “Alright, let’s trade,” He pulls his purchase out from the backseat and presents it to her with a flourish. Scully takes in the funny drawings and laughs under her breath.

“This is great, Mulder. Thanks.” She pulls his calendar out of its plastic wrapping and he barks out a laugh when he sees it. It’s Toy Story-themed with a little green alien in every square. Scully smiles, pleased with his reaction.

“You’re easy to shop for.” She says, gathering her things and buttoning up her coat. “This was fun, thanks for indulging me.”

“Always.” Mulder promises, leaning over the center console to give her a quick peck on the lips and plant another kiss on her cold nose.

\--

Scully learns the hard way that she hadn’t returned home a moment too soon. As soon as she’d stepped through the door, a well-known ache had started to radiate from her abdomen, followed by a trickle of wetness that had forced her to drop her bags in the foyer and shuffle toward the bathroom with an annoyed huff.

Now she lays on the couch, the weekend blessedly stretched out in front of her and a heating pad held tightly to her lower back. She’s only half-paying attention to a movie on the television- a Christmas comedy that she can excuse now that it’s officially December. The advent calendar that Mulder has chosen for her leans against the coffee table and a burst of light from the tv illuminates it, drawing her sleepy eyes directly to its colorful packaging. As if her stomach, eyes, and hormones are all conspiring against her, Scully suddenly feels very hungry. A glance at the clock hanging from the wall reveals that she’d forgotten about dinner.

Scully reaches for the calendar, groaning a little as she stretches, and picks it up. She finds the square for the first day and pops the cardboard window open and examines the sweet for a moment. It’s a small square of milk chocolate with a star indentation. She tosses it into her mouth and closes her eyes, savoring the richness of it. It’s a little sweeter with the knowledge that Mulder had chosen it for her.

As the evening wears on, Scully stays on the couch, feeling drained and warm and in no particular need to move. Although her cramps have mostly subsided for now with the help of the heating pad and a few ibuprofen, she eyes the advent calendar, a memory of how good that chocolate had tasted still lingering on her tongue. No one would blame her if she got a few days ahead of schedule, surely. Least of all Mulder, who has been known to leave snickers bars in her area of the office during her least favorite week out of every month.

It is this type of thinking that sends Scully reaching for the advent calendar yet again. An hour and a half later, she has watched the entirety of “The Santa Clause” and all of the calendar’s little windows have been opened. She looks down at the empty husk of cardboard on her lap and her eyes widen.

“Whoops.”

\--

**December 2nd, 1998**

Mulder arrives at Scully’s front door with a bag of Chinese takeout swinging from one arm and his advent calendar tucked under the other. He knocks a few times before impatiently using his own key to enter.

“Scully, I’m here!” He calls out to her apartment. The faint hiss of the shower down the hall is the only response. While he waits, Mulder makes quick work of unboxing the food and setting it all out of the coffee table. Satisfied with his prep work, Mulder settles down onto the couch and flips on the tv.

Scully is taking _forever_ in the shower and Mulder’s stomach growls in anticipation at he stares at the food in front of him. He really should wait...but Scully won’t mind if he started without her. Probably. Mulder sneaks a few bites of lo mein, eyes glued to the tv, before he hears someone clear their throat from the hall.

He looks up, swallowing his mouthful of food to find Scully smirking at him and wearing one of his t-shirts. She’s holding a pair of her own pajama pants in one hand and shimmies them on before walking over to him.

“Hey,” He says sheepishly, putting his fork down. 

“Hey.” Scully smiles and sits next to him, stealing his fork and a bite of his food.

“I brought my advent calendar so we can open them at the same time.” Off the surprised look on her face, Mulder backtracks. “Unless that’s weird?”

Scully sits next to him and laughs nervously. “I don’t know, are you sure you’ll be hungry after eating all of this?” She motions vaguely to the food in front of them. Something seems off her with and Mulder follows the quick flit of her eyes to a spot on the floor next to the tv where a heating pad partially covers her advent calendar. Even somewhat obscured, it’s clear that Scully had gone to town on it last night and ripped open all of the squares. Mulder looks back at her and raises his eyebrows.

“Not as hungry as you were, apparently.” He says lightly. Next to him, Scully blushes brightly but says nothing. Mulder takes the hint and hands her a fork. They eat in companionable silence and watch the news.

Later, a movie plays on the tv and illuminates the room in its faint glow as Scully’s head rests in Mulder’s lap. He combs his fingers through her hair gently, unsure whether she is asleep or just quiet. His eyes travel back to her empty calendar and he smiles to himself, picturing Scully ripping open square after square. It’s so unlike her, his restrained and careful partner.

When Scully laughs at a joke on the tv, Mulder is reassured that moving won’t wake her. He leans forward slightly to grab his own advent calendar from where it sits on the floor next to the coffee table. She grumbles when his movement disrupts her and he apologizes with a kiss to the crown of her head.

“Shall we?” He asks, shaking the calendar lightly. Scully sighs and sits up.

“Mulder...” She bites her bottom lip and looks between him and her discarded calendar across the room. Mulder shrugs and opens Day 2 of his own calendar. The chocolate inside has a cowboy hat printed on it. He breaks it in half roughly and holds out the bigger piece to Scully.

“Merry Christmas.” He offers.

She smiles and takes the chocolate from him, popping it into her mouth and chewing. “It’s only December 2nd.”

“Fine then,” He counters, eating his own piece. “Happy December 2nd, Scully.”

She kisses him sweetly. “Happy December 2nd, Mulder.”


	11. blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: "that's a lot of blood..."
> 
> blood tw

“It’s nothing.” She says, swiping hastily under her nose and letting the warm blood drip down her wrist. Damn, that stain will be hard to get out of a white shirt. She can taste metal on the back of her tongue with the little sense of taste she has these days.

Mulder, whose face is chalky as he fumbles for a handkerchief, doesn’t approach this setback with the same calm that she does. “Here, Scully, sit down.” He hands her the handkerchief and tries to guide her to one of the plastic chairs in the empty interrogation room, but she bristles against him.

“I just need a minute and then we can bring the first witness in,” She mutters into the fabric that is quickly soaking through with blood. The room tilts on its axis and she leans against the table surreptitiously. She closes her eyes and tilts her head forward, willing the bleeding to stop. “Let’s go over the case facts again.”

Mulder sighs and recites the information from memory while pacing a rut into the cement floor.

Scully barely feels herself sag against him as she loses consciousness. She wakes in her motel room with a room temperature coke on the bedside table next to her and the lights off save for the orange glow that filters in through the open adjoining door. At least Mulder had followed her instructions this time instead of taking her to the hospital for another lecture on the meaning of the words _terminal_ and _living with a disease_.

Later, when she rises from the shower floor, she finds her dress shirt stained lightly pink instead of dark red and smelling of Mulder’s body wash.


	12. An Early Morning Birthday Gift pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> companion piece to chapter 7
> 
> Happy birthday Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, MD <3

Her body has clearly been awake longer than her mind, growing impossibly wetter under Mulder’s clever tongue even as she struggles to emerge from the depths of sleep. Scully doesn’t need to open her eyes to envision the scene that she’s woken to. The image of Mulder with his head buried between her thighs has already been burned into her memory from countless nights spent exploring each other. Instead, she let’s her body remain relaxed as waves of pleasure wash over her like gentle waves kissing the sand on a beach.

Mulder’s fingers, warm and slightly calloused, spread her open as his tongue explores and dips inside her, causing her muscles to pulse and clench around him. His tongue flattens against her cunt and drags slowly upward to her clitoris where it begins a pattern of tight circles, just how she likes it.

At the sharp and almost overwhelming burst of pleasure, Scully can no longer uphold the charade of sleep. The tip of Mulder’s tongue flicks across her clitoris _just so_ and her hips jerk off the bed as a gasp leaves her mouth. She expects him to come up for air after accidentally suffocating him, however momentarily, but Mulder doubles down. Thank god for his one track mind, she thinks blearily.

He begins to devour her as if it’s a game, trying to pull needy little sighs and moans out of her. It works. Scully’s back arches off the mattress and her toes curl as Mulder dips two fingers inside of her and gently strokes her g-spot. At the same time, his tongue circles and laps at her clitoris. The combination is incredibly powerful. Scully can feel the heat of a flush on her chest and cheeks as well as an orgasm that begins to build deep inside her.

Mulder reads the signals from her body like an expert and begins to pump his fingers in and out of her with long, slow strokes. His tongue increases its speed. Scully can’t help but grind down on his hand and his face until she’s coming, spasming around his digits and shouting obscenities into the bedroom. Mulder licks and strokes her gently until the waves subside. Then, he presses a wet kiss to each of her thighs and emerges from beneath the blanket, looking both adorably mussed and downright pornographic. He lays on his stomach and rests his chin, which is slick with her desire, against her chest.

“Happy birthday, Scully,” he says, sounding rightfully satisfied with himself.

Scully, still breathing heavily, pulls him up for a kiss and tastes herself on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated :)


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